I am a twelve year old girl who has been put through shit in the past few years. I’m not sure where the problem began, but I’m trying my best to find out.

I think it started last August, when my “friend” Shelby and I tried cutting ourselves with sticks. She did it for attention, while I did it because I thought that maybe it might help. Little did I know that I was committing myself to this life (because I’m such an idiot). She made scratches on her arm while I was trying to make it bleed.

In middle school, things started to get worse. I had made friends with thus girl named Zoe (one thing I didn’t mess up on), and we’ve been good friends ever since. But bad things were happening. I noticed that I was more impatient and aggressive, and less happy like I used to be. My friends were slowly slipping away from me, and I never stopped to notice. There were a few, like Zoe, who stayed and tried to help, but she didn’t know how to help.

Then, in March, I successfully cut myself for the first time. I had two other friends who cut (Paige and Zoe) and two who claim they cut (Shelby did and blamed me when she was caught though she was telling everybody, and I know Abby didn’t, otherwise there would be a mark on her arm). Both Zoe and Paige got caught eventually, while I stayed away from the counselor (he fucking scares me!). It’s a wonder why I haven’t gotten caught.

Then I was slowly slipping into depression. After the cutting, I had four failed suicide attempts (obviously I was never going to get hit). I plan, but never actually have the courage to carry out the plans. I want out of this hell, but I hate myself for not leaving here. I have one friend who is being treated for depression, so she tries to help me (though it hasn’t worked yet) and Zoe attempts to help, but she has no clue about what I’m going through.

At my twelth birthday party (May 9) I had Abby, Shelby, Mia, Lily, and Zoe at my house. They got along with each other alright, so I didn’t expect problems except between Abby and Zoe. A half hour later, I’m crying in my sisters’ closet, Zoe tries helping, Mia and Lily act drunk but Mia helps eventually, Shelby listens to my iPod Touch, and Abby talks about how much she wants to have sex with Kyle. Some shitty birthday party, right? Well, then Zoe and I are left out of the other girls’ conversation because, as Shelby says, “There are just too many people in one room”, but I think either her or Abby hate Zoe, so they ditch us. Stupid me for being depressed, I’m such a *****.

Then the summer came. I thought I’d be happier, but now things are worse than ever. My dad is verbally abusive towards me, and not my four other siblings. My friends all hate me, though they claim otherwise. I’m actually thinking of running away. Worst of all, I’m the total outcast in the school. I used to do my best in school, but now, though I’m still an excellent student, my grades are slipping. I used to get all A’s and A+’s, but now I mainly get A-‘s and B+’s. I don’t even try anymore. I guess it’s mainly because I’m an idiot, like my dad implies. My dad has said more hurtful things than that. I’ve been called a *****, a stupid hippie, lesbian, a loser, hey says that 90% of my friends will be on drugs or pregnant by high school, plus he threatens to put me in a boarding school, move in with my great aunt who lives two hours away, or put me up for adoption.

It’s official. My life is hell. Go ahead, make fun of me like almost everyone in my school does. I don’t care.

11 Comments

I thought I wrote a long response to this last night, but I don’t know where it went…

It may not seem like it right now, but grades are not everything. Yes, they’re important if you want to get into a good college. But it depends on what field you want to go into. If you’re not sure you’re going to college, or don’t know what you want to study, I would just focus on studying things that interest you and that will give you the most flexibility in your future choices.

Guidance counselors may be stupid, but if you’re lucky, there might be a good (meaning smart) one at your school. It’s worth checking out. If you think the person is stupid or don’t trust them, then you don’t have to talk to them. But if you happen to have a good one, they can really help you get clear about what your options are and how important grades are (or not).

I was a straight-A student in high school too, and I remember the one time a teacher threatened to give me a B because I hadn’t turned in a paper. I managed to persuade him not to, because it would have ruined my perfect gradepoint.

But you know what? After all that, my grades didn’t turn out to matter anyway. I went to architecture school, where grades are only part of it – you have to submit a bunch of drawings and they judge you based on your artwork and other things rather than just your grades.

So grades are only *one* way to see how good you are at something.

I also grew up with a dad who put me down a lot and undermined me and tried to make me feel stupid.

You know what? I think he was jealous. Men really hate it when women are better than they are at something (not all men, but a lot of them). It makes them feel really insecure and they take it out on us by making fun of us and trying to make us feel bad about ourselves.

What you need is an objective opinion to go against what your dad says.

Like, is there a teacher in one of your classes who you can talk to? I wish, when I was in high school, I would have known to go up to my favorite English teacher and say, “Hey, my dad is always saying these really mean things to me that make me feel stupid and like I’m no good at what I do. Can you help me? It’s starting to make me feel really bad about myself and lose confidence.”

If it’s a good teacher, they should be able and willing to help you build back your self esteem. Ideally, a guidance counselor should be able to help with this, too. Again, it depends on how smart they are, and I would trust your instinct on that. A bad counselor is just as likely to try to bring you down as your dad does, so watch out for that.

You’re not an idiot, you just have a father who’s trying to bring you down. Parents have a lot of power to influence how people feel about themselves. Sometimes they abuse this power to make themselves feel better while making their kids feel like shit.

Trust your instincts about your friends, too. It’s better to have only one GOOD friend, like your friend Zoe, than to have many ‘bad’ friends who will stab you in the back. You have to decide between being ‘cool’ (having lots of ‘friends’) and being happy (having people you can actually trust when the going gets rough.)

I know how vicious girls can be with gossip and rumors, they can make your life a living hell. So you might want to distance yourself from these non-friends, but do it so it’s not too obvious. Just kind of be not available, be busy when they want to do stuff. They’re not old enough to have a mature, grown-up conversation about how their behavior affects you. I also think you’re smarter than most of them. Maybe the reason you and Zoe get along better is because she’s smart, too, like you? Just a guess.

kayceekitten,
I am a man. I bathed with my daughter, even taught her how to clean her genital, which my wife refused to care about. Until she was seven, I stopped when the sex discrimination emerged. She was influenced by her female classmates, telling her to keep distance with the boys.

Of your father, a normal male, will not know how to stay close with the daughter, without being thinking of sex. He might have ways to attract women, but staying close to one he avoid being attracted to, the daughter, may lead to further distance apart from father-daughter relationship. Don’t blame your father. He just don’t know how to handle it, especially if husband and wife situation complicates. On the other hand, he may expect you to grow better by yourself, but usually turns up rotten, without appropriate guidance. You are always the extraordinary one in your family, of course become the culprit to blame.

In school, bad influence is always grouped together, doing evil things, away from what the normal will do, because they think they are the outcasted ones. Such as attempting risked games, or playing the ouija board, then usually ended up with worse situations, till they find the sign ‘No Way Out’.

Consider yourself being lucky finding friend’s support like ‘pulling the plug’.

kaycee, you’re 12. Twelve years old. You’re not even a teenager yet. You are a CHILD.

I’m not saying this to insult you. I’m saying: It’s NOT your fault. Your parents fighting is NOT your fault.

Your dad may yell at you because of something you said or did, but, again, kids do shit. That’s what kids do. That’s part of the definition of being a kid.

Seriously, I don’t mean to insult you. It sounds like you’re having to grow up too fast, you’re not being allowed to be a little girl for as long as you need to.

If your friends ditch you and talk behind your back, get new friends. People who treat you this way are not your true friends.

You’re also not stupid.

Sometimes parents expect too much from their kids. They expect you to act like a grownup when, hey, you’re a kid.

That’s what childhood is for: So you can learn things, and make mistakes, and have older people around to help you when you mess up and show you other ways to things when you can’t figure them out yourself.

It sounds to me like you need some different grownups in your life than the ones you’ve got.

It is entirely my fault that my parents fight because they fight about how to punish me!!!!! And every time I act mature, I get yelled at, same with everytime I act my age. If I act like a twelve year old my parents tell me to be mature. If I act older my parents tell me to act my own age!!!!!

All I was trying to say is, if your *parents* were a little more mature, they’d understand that a 12-year-old is a kid, and that kids do shit all the time, and they’d handle it a little better than they appear to be doing.